


Bread from the Earth

by enkelimagnus



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Alternate Universe - Jewish, Challah Baking, Gen, Good Parent Maryse Lightwood, Judaism, M/M, Sephardic Jewish Lightwood Family, Sephardic Jews, Shabbat, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 12:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21197702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/pseuds/enkelimagnus
Summary: It was rather unusual for Alec’s mom to ask him to come over early on Shabbat. Usually, when they had a family dinner, she would prepare everything herself while Magnus and him wrapped up with work and other weekly things before everyone gathered at the Lightwood home.----------------Alec is newly engaged to the love of his life, and Maryse, learning and developing, cannot imagine a world where her son isn't part of her family. She shows her love and acceptance in an important way. Teaching Alec how to bake challah.





	Bread from the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> The recipe here is a recipe for a Sephardic challah!
> 
> Challah is very important to the Jewish traditional celebrating of holidays!

It was rather unusual for Alec’s mom to ask him to come over early on Shabbat. Usually, when they had a family dinner, she would prepare everything herself while Magnus and him wrapped up with work and other weekly things before everyone gathered at the Lightwood home. 

He didn’t exactly know why she’d asked him to take the afternoon off, but it was probably important. Maybe it had to do with the wedding preparations. Alec had proposed to Magnus a couple of weeks prior. He hadn’t expected his mother to be as excited about it as she actually had been. When he’d come out and started dating Magnus, she had been only partially accepting. 

It had taken the three years of Magnus and Alec’s relationship for her to mellow enough that she excitedly hugged him when he showed her the ring he was planning to propose with. The ring hadn’t left Magnus’ finger since that quiet evening on the balcony of their apartment. 

Alec rang at the door of Maryse’s house and heard his mother hurry behind the door. He grinned widely when she opened the door and hugged him tightly. 

“Hey, mom,” he said happily, and hugged her back. 

Maryse let go of him and closed the door. Alec slid off his coat and straightened his kippah. She led him into the kitchen. 

On the counter had been gathered ingredients and a large mixing bowl. Maryse directed him to wash his hands and gave him an apron. 

“You asked me to come early for a… cooking class?” He asked, surprised. 

Maryse hummed, putting on her own apron and taking off her rings. “Well, yes and no. I asked you to come early so I could teach you to bake challah.” 

Alec opened his mouth, then closed it. That was… unexpected. 

“I know you’re not…  _ the wife _ . You’re both men, etc. But I know Magnus cooks a lot more than you do and I thought… you’d like to be able to do that. Bake challah for shabbat. And I know you’re 27, and I should probably have taught you much earlier but I held onto the hope you’d have a jewish girlfriend and wife who would do it for way too long and now I just… I've been thinking about it a lot. I want you to have that. For you, as my son, as my family and… for the two of you.” Maryse rambled. “So… challah.” 

Alec felt something warm gather inside of his heart. Challah was important. Challah was the bread of rest days and holidays and important dates. It was the bread that was passed down from generation to generation, usually from mother to daughter. He knew Magnus probably had his own recipe but… 

There was something about making his mom’s challah for the two of them, for their home, that made Alec feel so emotional that he felt some tears sting his eyes. He felt ridiculous, tearing up because of some bread, but here it was. 

“Oh, baby, don’t cry,” Maryse said softly, pulling her son close and holding him tightly. 

Alec felt stupid to be this emotional about bread. But here he was. It was the acceptance. The acceptance that yes, Alec was going to get married, and he was going to get married to a man, and that, if Maryse wanted to pass down her challah recipe, she was going to have to teach him, not wait to teach his girlfriend/wife. And more than that, it was being part of a family. Of his family. Of the culture of his ancestors. 

Alec had had trouble accepting his own identity. Though the community he was a part of was not entirely against queer people, it was still a mixed kind of support that had made him feel uncomfortable and off as he was growing up. There had been many times where he’d wondered whether he could be gay and Jewish, whether he could be part of his community and culture if he wasn’t straight. 

With work, with love from Magnus and his siblings, and his synagogue, he’d managed it. He remembered the day he’d bought a rainbow kippah, as some sort of identity-affirming gesture to himself. He remembered the first Shabbat with Magnus, he remembered the first holidays with him, and how it felt right to be who he was. 

His mom let go of him after a moment. “Come on. It’s not gonna bake itself.” She muttered, but there was an undeniable emotion to her voice. 

“What do we need?” He asked, looking over the ingredients that were on the counter curiously. 

Robert, Alec’s father and Maryse’s ex-husband, had been very traditional with gender roles. Izzy was always asked to help in the kitchen, set the table, help her mom, while Alec was never asked anything of the sort. He was a little out of bounds here. 

“You can take a small bowl, put the yeast in, and some warm water. We need one envelope of the yeast, and around two tablespoons of water,” Maryse started. Alec got to it immediately. She watched over him as he did the simple task. “Good, good. We’ll keep an eye on it and see when it’ll be done with getting moist. Now, grab a skillet, and set it on moderate heat,” she instructed, grabbing small boxes from the counter and putting them next to the stove. 

Alec did as instructed. He wasn’t the best of cooks, but this was important, and he  _ wanted _ to get this right. 

As the skillet was warming up, Maryse stood next to him. “Now, we’re going to toast the spices,” she explained. “When I was young, my mom used to give names to the spices, and I didn’t know why. When I asked, when I was older, I learned that the names were the names of the women before her who had passed down the recipe,” she smiled. 

Alec smiled back, and looked at the little boxes. “Which ones do we put in?” 

“I use sesame, caraway, cumin and anise, but I know some people who add poppy or coriander as well,” Maryse smiled. “We can either do my recipe perfectly, or you can add an ingredient, and make it yours.” 

Alec reached for the little containers, humming. He liked the idea of adding a spice and making it his own. He liked the idea that that spice could be his own, his family’s. 

“What are the names for the ones you use? Are we using the Hebrew names or the secular ones?” 

Maryse smiled. “I use the Hebrew ones. So, now that the pan is hot, I’m going to toss in the spices, starting from the oldest name to the more recent one.”

“What quantity?”

“Whatever seems right to you,” Maryse chuckled. “Not too much, not too little. Enough to warm you, and enough to be felt.” 

Alec chuckled. “That’s a scary accurate method of measurement there, mom.” 

Maryse gently tapped him on the shoulder and grabbed the cumin. “Cumin first. Your great-great-great grandmother, Ziva.” 

Alec grabbed the container of cumin and put some in his hand, before gently tossing it into the skillet, muttering the name under his breath and committing it to memory. It was comforting. 

“Next is the caraway. Your great-great-grandmother, Ganit.” 

Alec followed the same motions. The cumin was starting to lightly roast on the skillet, and a sweet odor was coming out of it. 

“Sesame. Your great-grandmother, Shirli,” Maryse added, and Alec kept going. “Then, the anis, and your grandmother. That’s Morasha.” 

Alec finished with the anis and then reached for the coriander. “So. I want to add coriander. And… That’s gonna be for Zimra, for you,” he said softly and tossed the last seeds into the skillet. With a wooden spoon, he gently swished them around so they wouldn’t stick to the skillet too much. 

Magnus liked coriander a lot. And it felt good to add his mom’s Hebrew name to the challah. In some sort of obscure and hard to explain way, it felt like Alec was connected to his family more than ever, understanding the line of women before him who had stood there and toasted seeds before baking them into challah bread for Shabbat. 

As they became fragrant, Maryse took a bowl and he transferred the toasted seeds into it, and set the skillet to the side to cool down. 

They combined flour, olive oil, honey and warm water into an electric mixer’s bowl and let it mix while they were cleaning up and preparing the rest. Maryse put on the radio and they both hummed and listened to music as they waited for the dough to become soft. 

The electric mixer was probably not the most traditional method, but it was for sure the fastest and easiest, and Alec was not up for trying his hand at doing it without kitchen appliances yet. They added the yeast, some salt, and the toasted seeds, and Maryse pushed the mixer to a faster pace. Alec couldn’t help the child-like fascination that overcame him as he watched it all mix together and form a beautifully smooth dough.

“Give me your hands,” Maryse instructed and Alec put his hands forward. She poured a dollop of olive oil onto them. “Spread it over your hands. It will help us to retrieve the dough from the bowl, and it’s good for the skin.” 

She let him transfer the dough to a large oiled bowl, cover it in plastic wrap, and let it sit in a corner of the room. 

“Now, this can sit out for a while. Hour and a half, two hours, we just need it to double in size and we can keep going.” 

They washed their hands, cleaned everything and tidied the kitchen. 

When, hours later, after baking, and praying and repeating blessings, Alec bit into his first taste of the first challah loaf he’d ever made, under his mother’s loving gaze, he felt grounded in a way he’d never really felt before.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this!
> 
> Shoot me an ask or a DM on my tumblr @enkelimagnus, or reach me on my Twitter @enkelimagnus!  
I have anons on and curiouscat so don't be shy!


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